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Talks with Roger is a sponsored supplement to our free monthly e-newsletter, Notes from the Horn Book. To receive Notes, sign up here.

A picture book manuscript can be a lonesome thing. You might even say the best ones generally are, still seeking a companion to bring sense and wholeness to their lives. Beth Ferry’s text for Stick and Stone is particularly terse, even mysterious, taken on its own, waiting for pictures to complete it. Beth and illustrator Tom Lichtenheld here talk about how they turned Beth’s words into a book.

Roger Sutton: My first question is about the genesis of the thing. When you look at the words all by themselves, you think, “Oh, this is rather zen-like.” I’m curious to know, Beth, how you began?

Beth Ferry: It was a challenge I made to myself. I really like to write 500- and 600-word stories, so I made it a challenge to write one under 200 words. I wasn’t sure yet what it was going to be about. I think that was the first time I treated my writing as a job, like it was work — I’m going to write something with the intent of being published. And then I picked friendship as a theme because what I love about picture books is they truly do appeal to all ages. I get a lot out of my kids’ picture books. And friendship, finding and keeping good friends, is a challenge throughout your life.

RS: Tom, is this final text fairly close to Beth’s original manuscript? Is this what you first saw?

TL: Yes, I would say 99.5 percent.

RS: How did you know what to do?

TL: Well, I made a lot of mistakes first.

BF: Which were all brilliant, by the way. Every mistake was brilliant. I’m just saying.

TL: Thank you. I did a posting on the Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast blog showing a bunch of my mistakes. After I went down all the blind alleys, I realized what I should be doing, and I did that. I always do a lot of preliminary work. Sometimes it goes somewhere and sometimes it doesn’t. But to answer your original question, the very thing that Beth just talked about, the succinctness, was the thing that attracted me immediately. In that zen-like atmosphere that it creates, I fell under the spell of the rhythm and the cogency. It’s spare, yet it’s rich. Everything dovetails together and fits. It’s still got a dynamic arc to it. There’s pathos at the beginning, and there’s drama in the middle, and there’s a resolution. It walks you through all those things seamlessly. I always know if I want to work on a book from the first reading, and the first time I start doodling. I’ll start doodling right in the margins of a manuscript, if I’m taken with it, and if my doodles actually feel good, then I know that I’m interested in the project. We changed very little editorially as I worked on it. There was one little thing I asked the editor and Beth if we could do at the end, and they were cool with that, so we made that little adjustment, and everything was there.

RS: It’s a very collaborative book. Of course in the theme of the book, the friendship between Stick and Stone, but also in the interdependence of the text and the pictures. Did you work together as the project went along?

TL: We really didn’t, which is unusual for me. I usually collaborate pretty closely with the authors I work with, but this was so figured out already. I could tell that even though it was simple, the simplicity was the result of a lot of work. Everything was just bolted together. There was a little bit of back and forth, but to be honest with you — and Beth, correct me if I’m wrong here — I don’t think there was a lot of it.

BF: No. I had seen some of the original sketches, and Tom did these brilliant puns. There was a lot of conversation between the stick and the stone, and a pinecone making little comments. My whole family and I were laughing out loud. But [editor] Kate O’Sullivan pointed out that when you read any type of conversation bubbles, or however it would have appeared, you lose the rhythm. So I think Kate was ultimately right in saying no dialogue.

RS: There are only a couple of moments when we do get an interjection, like the “boom” of the hurricane.

BF: Right. And you know what I find? When I read the book to kids I never read those words, but they do. I stay with the rhythm, and they’ll read the “boom” and “cowabunga,” which is really funny. And perfect.

TL: I’ve been reading the book quite a bit to kids in schools. Often when I read a book to kids I will stop along the way and talk about the visuals and talk about the story, but I learned pretty quickly with this book to just read it through. It’s that zen-like trance they get into with this story. At first I misinterpreted their silence as uninterest, but then when you really watch them they’re just transfixed. As soon as you get to page three, “Lonely. Alone,” you’ve got them. And it’s hard sometimes not to say something about the story or the pictures, but I don’t say a thing anymore, just read it.

RS: Beth, what surprised you most about the transformation of your manuscript into a picture book? When you look at this book now, what’s in there that you didn’t see for yourself?

BF: I’m not an artist at all, so I don’t actually spend a lot of time thinking about what the pictures are going to look like. I know I could never do justice to them. The characters aren’t full of personality when you’re writing them, especially in something so short, but you want them to be. Every time I see my characters now—every day, because I have a picture of them hanging on my wall — it’s a shock. I don’t know if this happens to other picture book authors who are not illustrators, but it’s truly joyful. It makes me beyond happy to see how they turned out.

RS: How come you made them boys?

BF: That’s a great question. You know what? I don’t know.

RS: I think of it because I had this long discussion with Marla Frazee when we did an interview about The Farmer and the Clown. We were both talking about the clown being a little boy, even though it’s a wordless book and you really can’t tell the difference when they’re that small and they have their clothes on, right? But we both decided it was a little boy.

BF: And I totally concur.

TL: It’s a fascinating phenomenon, Roger. I have this book called Duck! Rabbit!, and there’s a genderless character in it, okay, that’s either a dinosaur or an anteater. When I talk about the character with kids, I make it a she. And immediately, the boys protest, because they’re so accustomed to genderless characters being presumed to be male. It is just amazing, that she’s got her head up in the tree eating a leaf, or she’s got her nose on the ground. It’s really kind of dispiriting, but a fun experiment.

RS: Even here at the Horn Book, we’ll often initially default to male, even though we don’t know for sure. Luckily a fact-checker will catch that, if the character is not actually identified one way or the other.

TL: It’s built in, I’m afraid. And I’m afraid — this is not an endorsement, just an observation — I’m afraid that girls and women are so accustomed to it that they kind of accept it, maybe not even as a slight, but just as a fact.

RS: Right.

BF: You don’t even notice. I have two bulldogs. One’s a girl and one’s a boy. But to me, all bulldogs should be boys, because they look like boys. I know that sounds silly.

RS: Oh, Beth, I’m worse than you. I think all dogs are boys and all cats are girls.

All right, let’s talk about the gender-ambiguous pinecone. Do you foresee any further adventures of Pinecone?

BF: I don’t know, actually. That’s a great question. Kids do want to know what happens to Pinecone. I hadn’t actually thought about poor Pinecone after being swept away, so I think the way Tom brought the character back — Pinecone’s redemption — was really important for kids. And it does lead to a nice discussion about how you forgive someone who is mean to you. But so far, no, I don’t have a story yet about Pinecone.

RS: Do you two plan to do another book together?

TL: As soon as she sends me another perfect manuscript.

BF: No pressure at all.

TL: The Revenge of Pinecone.

BF: Exactly. We haven’t really talked about it yet. Maybe it would be fun to do another one.

TL: I would love to do another book together but I’m not a huge fan of sequels.

RS: Amen, brother.

TL: Number one, I like challenges. This book had so many wonderful challenges in it. And I feel like I would be repeating myself. I’m fine with a series, a book or a character that is designed from the get-go to be a series, and I’m actually working on one right now. But the difference is it’s built that way from day one, and you make sure there’s a lot of territory to explore with these characters. A sequel for the sake of a sequel I’m not really a fan of.

RS: Yeah, I like the idea of just letting Stick and Stone and their new little sidekick Pinecone walk off into the sunset. It’s our job to figure out what happens next.

TL: Right.

BF: Tom, when you drew the eyes in the cave, was that just for fun, or did you actually have in mind what creature was in there?

TL: I had no idea. I just knew that when you go to cartoon school, there are always eyeballs in a cave. If you’ve got a cave, there’s got to be eyeballs.

BF: It’s funny — when I look at it, I see some type of creature. Resoundingly the kids are saying, “Oh, it’s Pinecone.”

RS: Really?

TL: I never thought about that.

BF: I know. Me neither. The first time someone said it, the kid was like, “Yeah, he’s hiding, because he’s embarrassed that he was bad.”

TL: Wow.

BF: Brilliant, that kid. It never occurred to me.

TL: So smart.

RS: I think one of the neatest things that you learn when you share a picture book with young children is they really do look at everything in those pictures. You can’t let something slip by.

TL: Right.

BF: The details — until I saw your presentation about the dolphin in the logo, I didn’t get that, but I think it’s brilliant.

TL: Very subtle.

BF: Yes, but really smart. And kids love the dolphins, so it’s a double win.

RS: Wait a minute, what are we talking about with the dolphins?

TL: On the spread that says “laze by the shore,” where Stick and Stone are—

RS: Oh, it’s the Houghton Mifflin dolphins!

TL: It’s the old Houghton Mifflin dolphins. Which they abandoned in preference for what I call the drunken geometric shapes.

RS: Yes. Ahem! Tom, I interrupted you before. Do you remember what you were going to say?

TL: Oh, I was talking about the cave. I originally spent a lot of time sketching out scenes where Stick and Stone were wandering around the world, exploring. I did these visual jokes where Stone was sitting in the middle of Stonehenge, because I thought that would be funny, Stone going to Stonehenge. One of the reasons I abandoned that idea was I realized the reason for showing these characters doing some exploring was to enrich the relationship, rather than just make funny jokes about them going to Stonehenge and Easter Island. So when they’re looking into the cave, you notice that Stick is behind Stone. He’s sort of trepidatious and using Stone as kind of a safety net as he peers into the cave. And on the other side of the spread Stone is making a path for Stick.

BF: Every kid is like, “Look what he’s doing! He’s making a path.” They get it. It’s so great.

RS: And do they get the bouncing into the water, the physics of all that? You know, when Stone saves Stick, who’s drowning in the puddle?

BF: I don’t know. I mean, they get what’s happening. They all say, “How does Stone get out?” and I just say, “Well, he rolls out.” Because he can roll. They’re not questioning how that log is just conveniently in the right spot.

RS: It’s brilliant how clear it is — gathering speed on the hill, and then using the log for liftoff, plopping quickly into the puddle, and boom, out comes Stick. It’s a terrific demonstration of physics right there.

TL: Right. I just want to take this opportunity to thank Beth for throwing that one at me. The line says “Stone rescues him quick.” So thanks a lot for giving me a stick and a stone with appendages, and making one of them rescue the other out of a puddle.

BF: When I wrote that line, I thought, “I don’t know how this is going to happen, but the illustrator will figure it out.” And you did a magnificent job.

TL: I love those kinds of challenges. It’s not an unreasonable challenge at all. You just figure it out.

The post Beth Ferry & Tom Lichtenheld Talk with Roger appeared first on The Horn Book.

Mayday, Mayday, Mayday! The Children's Book Review (call sign TCBR) is declaring a reading emergency. The weather is clear and suitable for reading outside.

The Use of Literary Devices in Picture Books: Part 1       
by Beth Ferry

As parents, we are constantly teaching our children about the world: rules, facts and essential life truths such as: Be kind. Be patient. Bees sting. Eat your vegetables. Don’t eat the sand. Say please and thank you. Don’t step on that ant. As they grow older, teaching can morph into school related lessons: spelling tools, vocabulary words, and math tricks such as Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally. As they grow even older, teaching becomes somehow more life affirming: Don’t drive and text. Be kind. Be true to yourself. Do your best. Hold your head up high. High school only lasts for four years.

In return, our children teach us how to be patient and forgiving. How to be creative and inventive. How to be happy. Watching them grow and learn has taught me a lot about myself, and I am a better person because I am a parent. But it is a rare event that I learn something academically new from my children. There are plenty of instances where I’ll encounter something I absolutely once knew, but have lost on the journey to adulthood, like, you know, the sum of interior alternate angles or how to balance a chemical equation. My college major was English after all. So imagine my surprise when, while reading aloud my new work-in-progress, my teenage son says “That’s anaphora.”

Stop the merry-go-round. What is he saying? Is it Latin? Text-talk? A new girl in his class? He explains it is a literary device he is learning about in AP English concerning rhetoric. What? He shows me his list of literary terms and I suddenly morph into a kid in a candy shop, marveling over this plethora of devices that I am unconsciously using and about which I have heard nary a whisper. I scurry off to devour this list, to taste each device and explore my own skill in using such lofty literary language without even knowing it.

There are reasons that these literary devices exist. It is because they work. The use of these devices makes writing stronger, more lyrical, more beautiful. Without even knowing it, I bet you will find your work peppered with polysyndeton, anadiplosis and euphony. Here are some of my favorites:

Alliteration. This one you will know as it is very common in picture books. I love alliteration and I’m sure you are familiar with the repetition of similar sounds in the beginning of successive words. I use them a lot in titles such as Stick and Stone or Pirate’s Perfect Pet.

Anadiplosis. This is the repetition of the last word of the preceding clause in the beginning of the next sentence. So it is almost like a word-segue between sentences. It’s hard to do, but very effective. The most recent and perfect example I can think of comes from the lyrics to the song “Glad You Came” by The Wanted:
Turn the lights out now
Now I’ll take you by the hand
Hand you another drink
Drink it if you can

Anaphora. This device is like alliteration but involving words instead of sounds. It is the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of every clause or sentence. The opening of A Tale of Two Cities is the perfect example: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness. . . It was the epitome of anaphora.

Anastrophe. Using this device allows the order of the noun and adjective to be reversed – think Yoda. It is also knows as hyperbaton, from the Greek meaning ‘transposition’. Poe uses this device to great effect, “Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing.”

Assonance. Like alliteration, assonance repeats sounds, but the sounds produced by the vowels only, such as “purple curtain”. In the same vein, consonance is the repetitive use of the consonant sounds, usually at the end – stuck, streak, luck. You probably use both of these without even knowing it.

Beth will return with MORE LITERARY DEVICES next month.  Rest assured…there are LOTS more!

Beth Ferry lives and writes near the beach. Her debut book, Stick and Stone, will be released on April 7, 2015 by HMH. Land Shark (Chronicle) will be released in Fall 2015 and Pirate’s Perfect Pet (Candlewick) follows in Fall 2016. 

Elena Mechlin has been promoted to literary agent at Pippin Properties, Inc.

Prior to joining the agency in 2009, Mechlin worked at Fulcrum Publishing, Simon & Schuster, and Random House.

Mechlin’s client list includes 2013 Newbery Medal-winning author Katherine Applegate, debut young-adult novelist Jason Reynolds, picture-book author Beth Ferry and illustrator Rob Dunlavey. On submissions, she represents clients who create all types of children’s literature projects from picture books through young-adult.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

This week we had a lot of success stories. It shows that working on your craft and coming out to writing and illustrating events clearly play a role in future successes.

I know everyone will be happy to hear a few success stories.

Sladjana Vasic won the September 2011 e-Book Cover Design Award, for a Nonfiction e-book.

I could not find a picture of Beth Ferry, but Beth has a big feather in her hat. She signed with agent Elena Mechlin at Pippin Properties for her Stick and Stone story – a direct result of attending our June conference.

Here is Tara Lazar with her Agent Ammi-Joan Paquette. If you attended the 2011 June Conference you most likely met Ammi-Joan. Tara sold her first book, THE MONSTORE, at the end of last year. Now Ammi-Joan at Erin Murphy Literary Agency has sold Tara Lazar’s second book, I THOUGHT THIS WAS A BEAR BOOK to Alyson Heller at Aladdin.

  
  
Darlene Beck-Jacobson signed with agent Liza Flessig at the Royce Agency for her historcial novel – a direct result of attending our June conference.

Jody Staton’s story won her a spot in the “Writers at Camden” Community Workshop in conjunction with Rutger’s University.

Congratulations everyone! Something good is waiting for the rest of you reading this – I just know it!

Talk tomorrow,

Kathy

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